A 4Cities Educational Experience at the University of Vienna
After a 4Cities Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters Spring School with a focus on transdisciplinarity was held at University of Vienna in 2023, a cross-semester transdisciplinary programme was pursued for the 15th cohort in the summer semester 2024. More specifically, Urban Studies Working Group lecturers crafted a semester of courses which provided a rich hands-on learning experience that enabled students to work closely with local stakeholders, and thereby bridge theory and practice. Through their studies of Socio-Spatial Diversity with Yvonne Franz, students conducted individual and group fieldwork throughout Vienna, before presenting the results of their analysis to students and Heike Hanhörster at TU Berlin. Topics span from public space and environmental integration to housing, equity and caring for marginalized groups.
This fieldwork experience was complemented with two transdisciplinary workshops for Contemporary Challenges in Urban Development with Kerstin Krellenberg and James Vandenberg. The focus of the class and the workshops revolved around the development of holistic sustainability assessment frameworks for evaluating public space projects in Vienna. In addition to providing students with organizational experience and workshop development skills, the workshops enabled students to collaborate with stakeholders who work in different areas of urban planning and development to construct their frameworks, and later, to present and discuss the potential impacts of their assessment results. These diverse experiences, which allow students to build a range of both conceptual and practical skills, are considered by the Urban Studies Working Group to be central pillars of a university education which empowers students and ensures they are prepared to contribute to inclusive and equitable urban sustainability transformations.
Big thanks to all curious minds and our student assistants Sophie Gnadenberger and Hannah Szirota for supporting the team in teaching.
